Scotland’s positive contribution to the UK Economy.

The Scottish economy has made a positive contribution to the UK economy for decades. If the UK Government handled it differently this contribution could have been much greater.

Between 1979 to 1995 inclusive Scotland paid £26.7 billion more to the London Exchequer than it had received. Source This works out at £5,080 approx. for every Scot. This could potentially have been much greater (see below).

From 1999 to 2014 inclusive Scotland paid more tax per person than the UK average by a total £12,200 per person (this includes from the countries’ geographic share of oil and gas which could have been much greater – see below). See Table E.2 in source

If the UK Government had handled oil and gas more effectively the resultant revenue could have been much higher.

Since oil was discovered in the North Sea in 1969 the barrels of oil equivalent (boe) produced by the UK and Norway were similar but revenue generated was very different.

	Norway	UK
Boe produced	40 billion	42.8 billion
Revenue generated	$1,197 billion	$470 billion
Revenue per boe	$29.8	$11

Source

Why is this? Two factors are:• by international comparison oil company tax treatment by the UK Government is generous.
• The UK’s need to try to meet current account spending and reduce the budget deficit leads to maintaining oil production even while world oil prices are low, while Norway strategically manages production in relation to the current oil price.

This in part explains why Norway’s ‘Government Pension Fund Global’ is now worth over £133,000 per person while here, as part of the UK, each person’s share of the national debt is over £27,000.(For population statistics click Population statistics source Then click ‘Mid 2016’ then ‘open’ then select table ‘MYE04’.)

From 2005 to 2015 inclusive the Balance of Trade in goods with all nations (which excludes: services, tourism and oil and gas exported direct from offshore platforms) shows Scotland exported £50,463 million (38%) more than it imported, equivalent to £9592 per person. England imported £1,117,901 million (53%) more than it exported, equivalent to -£21,180 per person.

Source Click box at ‘Archive Year’. At ‘UK Regional Trade Statistics Release’ ‘Quarter 4’ click ‘View Release’. At bottom of table click ‘EN’ tab for English figures and ‘SC’ tab for Scottish figures.

From 2005 to 2015 inclusive the Balance of Trade in goods with EU nations Scotland exported £33,070 million (71%) more than it imported, equivalent to £6301 per person. England imported £603,803 million (55%) more than it exported, equivalent to -£11,404 per person.

Gross Value Added (GVA) is a measure of the increase in the value of the economy due to the production of goods and services. According to 2017 data, even although North Sea oil and gas are not assigned to Scotland but as “Extra region” – not to a specific nation or region, Scotland has a higher GVA per head than any English region other than London and the South East. Source Scroll down to Table 1 and see column ‘GVA per head’.